Manos Antoninis, director of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), has pointed out that Africa has the majority of the basic education financing gap when compared to other continents of the world.
Antoninis made this known recently at a roundtable talk organised by Edugist who brought together a group of education experts and policymakers to localise and offer financing solutions to reach the Sustainable Development Goal Four (SDG 4) among African countries, especially Nigeria.
“To achieve the national targets, which are less ambitious than the universal global targets of everyone achieving them, is $97 billion per year.
Of that, $70 billion are for African countries. So the vast majority of the financing gap is located in Africa,” Antoninis said.
The UNESCO director added that this financing gap to meet national SDG 4 benchmarks is based on cost estimates built on seven indicators.
The seven indicators include early childhood education, out-of-school rate, the completion rate of upper secondary education, gender gap, target on learning outcome which is reading and mathematics, percentage of teachers trained, and finally, target on financing public budget on education.
The round table tagged “Financing Gap for Education: Can African Countries Afford their SDG 4 Benchmarks?” sought solutions to the financial challenges facing African countries in achieving Sustainable Development Goal Four (SDG 4), ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all.
According to Elvis Boniface, founder and chief strategy officer at Edugist, “This is the first in a series of monthly roundtables where we will bring together decision-makers, opinion shapers and operators in the education and development space in Africa to ensure quality and equal access to education, for all.”
Research has shown that Nigeria has allocated about 12 percent of its annual budget and two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on average to education in the last couple of years.
This is below the 15 percent of the annual budget and four percent of GDP budgetary allocation among African peers. There are 20 million out-of-school children in Africa’s most populous country, according to data from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics (UNESCO UIS).
In addition, one in four children in Africa does not complete primary education. And Nigeria’s target of 90 per cent primary school enrollment and completion rate, 85 percent junior secondary and 74 percent senior secondary completion rates as benchmarks ahead of the 2030 SDG deadline would be more aspirational than realistic without the necessary financing to back this.
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Adeola Salau, senior special adviser to the Lagos State governor on education in her remark said that in the past three years, Lagos State has had the highest allocation for education in Nigeria.
“We have the highest state allocation for education in Nigeria than any budget across Nigeria, our education budget is even higher than that of other capital expenditures, like higher than the budget for the Ministry of Works. This is something that is unprecedented,” she said.
Salau highlighted Lagos State’s investments in education saying Nigeria’s commercial capital has been spending on the creation of the schools because there are not enough schools for students, both at the primary and the secondary level.
“Education is not a cost but an investment,” she noted.
Furthermore, she disclosed that at the tertiary level, the Lagos State government has opened two new universities.
One of them is dedicated to education itself as a university of education which means that the institution will focus on breeding and training teachers who are going to come in to replace the ageing workforce because they are retiring.
“Teacher training is an important focus for the state and the state has been spending heavily on this. This involves working on programmes for the training of teachers at both primary and secondary levels. Teachers’ welfare has also been a top priority,” she said.
Hakeem Subair, chief executive officer, ‘1 Million Teachers’ in his speech called on the government to focus on basic education to develop children that function well in society.
“Let’s focus on the top priority which is ensuring that every child has access to functional basic education which is nine years of education,” Subair said.
On teachers’ welfare and access to information, he argued that when there is access to information this will increase economic and educational productivity, especially with access to internet connectivity.
“We should also focus on the front lines, the teachers leading the education and how to attract and to retain and make them stay,” he said.
Similarly, Adedamola Adewuyi, chairman of Queens College, Lagos, Parent Teachers Association (PTA), raised concerns over teachers deserting the country and the plans to replace them.
According to him, teachers are travelling abroad, what is the replacement plan? What is the training plan? What is the welfare package?
Adewuyi emphasised that education is a tool for national development and that if Nigeria does not get it right in education as a nation, then Nigerians would not progressively move forward.
On funding, he envisaged that there is a need for the government to be deliberate in terms of funding to make education accessible to all Nigerians
